Poetry archive 1

[Elven Doritos]

Have you ever
kissed the barrel
of a gun?

How did she
react?

[Elven Doritos]

I was a ballet dancer
in the days of my youth
doing strange arrangements
but with clumsy feet

I blame Paul McCartney

[Elven Doritos]

My misanthropy blooms eternal
Be it the grating harpy's laugh,
The crowing of the small-minded drunks,
The braying of the dandies,
The loose-jowled smirks of professors,
The nose-ring faux rebellion of the street rat,
The lamppost leaning of the leather baron,
The wagging tongue of the drab eunuch,
The high fashion warbling of the governess,
The stone fists of the ironclad avenger,
The waking numbness of the spinning sycophant,
The all-too-pretty clones who populate modern brothels,
The gold-toothed pimps who dial wrong numbers,
The dripping acid of the indignant lyricist,
The cackling volunteer and her whiny libretto,
Or the pompous poet with his pen...

[Elven Doritos]

A delicate leaf
trembling, autumnal
splashing goldenrod
on asphalt canvas

The lilac wilts
strings unbundled
even castles
shall erode:

I envy her
for the view
outside her frosted
window pane

[Elven Doritos]

It was some robotic sound shouting blandly through the atmosphere
a cataclysm, cavalcade muddled in unwholesome formation
here the inflection rise and fall with bleeps and static
overload! the senses break, imperfect pitch-and-tone

Do we remember?
dead men swinging in the Mississippi breeze
wanting freedom rights privilege

Do we remember?
marches trumpets folkies all in Washington
MLK and Malcolm and the civil rights-unrest

Teenage body dumped on sewer grate
young blood trickling into gutter
wailing mother and the clacking
of assault

Do we remember?
backpack dumped stand up for self
strumming anger into the back alley
stripped of life

Do we remember?
unpeeled face double-struck in side
punctured screaming hunted drained
robbed, stolen

and so
we must
press on

[Elven Doritos]

I cannot kiss
the mask
or ghost
or echo
of my true love

[Elven Doritos]

Two sexless, dreamless
seamless forms
Curling across the sky
their perfume
lingering
in the moonlight

I stand in awe

[Elven Doritos]

I wish she'd come unloosened
(from her clothes?)
Well yes, that too

Stripping bare our feelings
Burning draft cards
Manhattan rations and
everything going right

I just want to
make her
happy

[Elven Doritos]

Tip the scales and you might find that
streaming in your unborn mind is the
nascent calming truth that sages seek
and scholars soothe; digest your pain
and swallow fear before you find your
life is near or coming to its terminus
where angels hang in empty dust

and then I'd tell you,
much estranged,
that both of us still look the same

[Elven Doritos]

I took your cottage into waiting palms
I held your mother high with my hosannas
I lifted you into my raft of psalms
And sang for you, my sweet Shoshanna

Yes, I sing for only you, my sweet Shoshanna

But then the clouds of Calvary came pounding
But then you swung my lyre by its chord
I swear I heard on rocks your laugh resounding
You brandished your forgiveness like a sword

Yes, you brandished your forgiveness like some sword

[Elven Doritos]

The spindles of your mayhem
are taped across my skull
but I suppose it's for the best:
you never learned
to look
up

[Elven Doritos]

not into the whole
preservation of image
have nothing to lose?
then chisel your name
into the side of the road
after they put down
some new blacktop:
someone might
remember you

[Elven Doritos]

You summoned me into your hall
Acting useless as you bawled
But little one, you are no fountain

Preaching in your happy way
I know you tried but failed to save
The mist and smoke atop my mountain

The Occident is squirming at your feet
The rivers run in slivers of deceit

Strangling from the shrinking light
You press me deep inside your flight
I nod my hammer in your direction

You ask me for some other way
To sell your servants' waiting pay
And then you seek my own protection

Disoriented dreamers break their snore
You lost the right to knock upon my door

[Elven Doritos]

Something in the way you crawl
across my lap and tell me that
you want to kiss me
brings me sadness

I whisper in your trembling ear
a secret that must be revealed
regarding your sweet lips
and my refusal

I take a number, stand in line
become the soldier lost in time
for none who treat my love
as though a plaything

The ragdoll you are clinging to
will try now to abandon you
as snow blows in
from out of town

Trust me when I whisper close
that you are better than the ghost
I think you know where
I am standing

[Elven Doritos]

because you overcame the razor
because you armed yourself for war
because you cannot take misfortune
because next to you, Helen is a toad
because I can't be dipped into the Styx
because my heart is neither steel nor gas
because the crypt does not rattle
because the haze has not faded
because we have not had a drink
because you touched my spirit
because of derby hats
because you are a gem and not a metal
because I believe in genies
because you ask why
because you need the recipe
because your smile gleams through late summer and burns and quakes with such a mighty force that it leaves me in the rhythms of aftershock
because I can't see us in the mirror
because the room is full
because it's somehow empty
because you look so evil but
because I know you're not
because I take things too seriously
because I don't know if you do too
because I want to feel something
because you need more
because I trespassed into the realm of possibility and fantasy and I was ensnared in quicksand as they jabbed spears into my skull and I am trying to nurse my wounds
because of what we are
because of what we aren't